She was... the distant cousin my parents always talked about.
"Ngh... are you... Miss Roselia...?" I managed to ask as I pushed myself upright. My muscles ached, and I winced under my breath. Roselia didn't seem to notice-her wide golden eyes stayed fixed on me, shining with the same innocence I remembered from childhood.
"Mhm!" Roselia nodded eagerly, her long honey-blonde hair spilling down her back. The sleeves of her ornate kimono pooled around her as she sat on the floor, peering up at me with a bright, almost childlike smile.
"I see..." I managed, forcing a polite smile as I extended a hand toward her.
She took it instantly.
"Anyway, Miss Eunuella," she chirped, already tugging me forward, "are you ready to attend the Imperial Academy of History and Elements next week?"
"I'm... somewhat nervous, but yes."
My voice was quiet as I followed her through the estate's halls. She kept dragging me along with the same bubbly energy, her kimono trailing behind her like a parade banner. I watched her back as she pulled me into an ornate chamber-lined with stone, steam, and several sunken baths.
Roselia beamed and circled around me before stopping behind my shoulder.
"I see! Then let's get you cleaned up first!"
Before I could ask what she meant, she shoved me forward.
Water splashed around me, warm and shallow, but somehow... soothing. Not just physically, something deeper, something that brushed against the exhaustion in my soul.
I wiped the water from my face and spun around, ready to scold her-
-but froze when her kimono slid off her shoulders and pooled neatly at her feet.
Why is she stripping-?
My hand shot up to cover my eyes, heart thundering.
Even if we're both girls, this-this is NOT appropriate!
Not here. Not now. Not when everything had already spiraled into chaos.
"Uhm... Miss Roselia-"
I tried to speak, but the moment I blinked, the kimono that had been pooling at the bath's edge was all that remained.
Where did she go?!
Roselia was nowhere in sight-
"Shh."
Her voice drifted from behind me, soft and melodic-and wrong.
Then something warm pressed against my back. A hand traced a slow line down my arm, feather-light yet terrifyingly deliberate.
"Please don't panic, Miss Eunuella," she whispered beside my ear, her breath brushing against my skin.
A churning sensation swelled in my stomach, instinctive, primal.
This isn't right.
Her entire presence had shifted.
The cheerful, innocent girl from earlier was gone. Replaced by something poised, serpentine, and ancient-feeling. A predator wearing a smile I could no longer see.
"I am not your enemy," she murmured, and her fingertip tapped the fabric at my shoulder.
My clothes dissolved.
Not burned. Not unraveled. Not disintegrated by magic.
Just... gone.
Erased.
Like she had plucked the thread of their existence and snipped it out of reality.
A chill crept down my spine.
This... this wasn't anything like what I witnessed in Cryia.
It was worse.
My instincts screamed for me to run, because the woman behind me wasn't dangerous in any way I could understand. Not like the thieves, murderers, or starving predators back in the alleys of Cryia.
She was dangerous in a way that made violence itself feel small.
"Wh-who are you?" I forced out, my voice trembling despite my effort to remain composed. "Where is Miss Roselia...?"
A chuckle answered me, soft, melodic, deceptively gentle.
"I am Roselia, dear Rania."
Her finger traced along my cheek, slow and claiming, before lifting my chin. She tilted my face up until I had no choice but to meet her gaze.
Her golden eyes glowed, hypnotic, luminous, wrong. The smile she wore was something I couldn't name. Not hunger. Not cruelty. Something deeper.
Something that made my breath hitch.
I'd seen hunger before, in the eyes of the men in Cryia.
This wasn't that.
This was closer to the look of a man who was once lost in his obsession with the divine, devotion twisted into reverence, reverence twisted into mania.
But Roselia's gaze went even further.
It wasn't admiration.
It was possession.
Pure, unrestrained obsession.
"I've been waiting, my dear..."
Her voice lowered to a whisper, warm against my ear.
"For years."
I flinched as I felt her teeth gently nip my earlobe-like she was leaving a mark before she finally released me. The moment her hold loosened, I scrambled backward, covering myself with both arms.
Except... a towel was already wrapped around me.
When did that...?
Roselia's smile softened. Then, just like that, the cheerful, innocent girl from earlier resurfaced as if nothing had happened.
"Kidding! I just wanted to tease Miss Eunuella a little. Did I come off too strong?" she giggled, tilting her head and poking her cheek with a single finger.
"I'm sorry... I only wanted to lighten the mood."
Her expression fell, hands clasping together, guilt pooling in her golden eyes.
But beneath that innocence... there was something else.
A glint that felt like ownership.
Possession.
I forced the thought away, shaking my head before meeting her eyes again. My voice still trembled.
"It's fine... don't worry."
I kept my distance regardless.
Something in my gut told me this wasn't over.
Not even close.
Each time she spoke, the hairs on my arms rose-an instinctive warning echoing straight through my bones.
A week passed after the incident in the bath. I was officially a student of the Imperial Academy of History and Elements, and Roselia was there as well.
Always there.
She rarely left my side, not even for a moment. On the surface, she claimed she wanted to help me adjust to academy life. To guide me. To be a friendly cousin.
But whenever we were alone, that other version of her surfaced.
Cold, possessive, impossibly calm.
The part of her that acted like I was something she owned.
Still, I kept my purpose close to my heart:
Study. Graduate. Build a name.
Change the world myself if the gods wouldn't lift a finger.
Except Roselia... interfered. Constantly.
Like that one time—
---
It happened in her room.
There was no warning. One moment she was smiling, the next—
"Sit down."
Her tone left no room for argument. Before I could react, she seized my wrist. Not painfully, but firmly enough to drag me down onto the bed behind me. I hit the mattress with a soft thud, stunned.
"R-Roselia, what—?"
"No one will hear us," she said quietly.
It wasn't the volume that frightened me.
It was the calm.
She stood over me, her hand still clamped around my wrist, pinning it to the mattress. Her eyes, usually warm and bright, were sharp and predatory.
"Why are you doing this?" I managed, heart pounding in my chest.
Her grip tightened, never enough to injure, just enough to send a pulse of fear through me.
"Because you weren't listening."
She leaned down slightly, her face inches from mine. Her voice dropped into a low, trembling whisper.
"You were laughing with others today."
"...what?"
"You think I didn't see?" She tilted her head slowly. "Smiling with those girls... letting the boys talk to you so casually... after everything I've done to protect you?"
"That's not— you're misunderstanding—"
Her grip tightened again. Not choking, not bruising, just control. Enough to make my breath catch.
"Don't lie to me," she murmured.
"Don't make excuses."
Her expression shifted, somewhere between heartbreak and fury. But it was the intensity in her eyes that froze me.
"Rania," she whispered, "you're not allowed to drift away from me."
I fell silent.
I didn't speak. I couldn't.
The danger I sensed from her a week ago, the one I tried to convince myself wasn't real, now surged like a wave crashing into me.
I didn't understand what was happening.
But I understood one thing:
Roselia was dangerous.
Dangerous in ways I couldn't name, couldn't measure, couldn't fight.
And somehow, for reasons I didn't know, I was the center of all of it. Her fixation, her attention, her obsession.
Like she had known me long before I ever stepped foot into this estate.
Her expression softened, and her grip on my wrist loosened. She pulled back slightly, her eyes half-lidded.
"Good girl, Rania," she murmured, a small smile curling at the edges of her lips.
"At the very least, you know your place."
She leaned in again, slow and deliberate, closing the distance between us until her breath brushed my skin. Her lips hovered just a hair's breadth from mine—
And then they pressed against me.
Warm. Soft. Precise.
My breath caught in my throat.
A shock ran through my limbs, but they wouldn't move.
Not because I didn't want to pull away.
But because fear locked every muscle in place, freezing me from the inside out.
It felt wrong.
Everything about this felt wrong.
But caught beneath her weight, beneath her gaze, beneath the suffocating pressure of her presence—
I couldn't move.
I couldn't speak.
I couldn't escape.
All I could do...
was endure.
She pulled back just enough to look at me, her golden eyes half-lidded.
"Don't wander again, Rania," she whispered. "You're mine."
Her thumb brushed my cheek as she stood.
"Sleep well."
Then she left me frozen on the bed. Heart shaking, mind spiraling while her words echoed over and over in my mind.
You're mine.